Giant from Scythe: Susanoo CPU Cooler Review. Page 3

Installation Tips

Overall, installation procedure for Scythe Susanoo doesn’t really differ from that for Scythe Mine 2 or Mugen 2 Rev. B. This is what it looks like schematically:

LGA 1155/1156/1366

Socket AM2(+)/AM3

While Mugen 2 Rev. B and Mine 2 were quite inconvenient to install, the super-large and super-heavy Scythe Susanoo is even more inconvenient to deal with. You can download the detailed installation manual from the official company web-site (PDF-file, 4.86 MB).

Despite its size, the cooler is pretty compact at the base and neither its heatpipes nor the additional heatsink will interfere with any of the components around the processor socket or with the system memory:

As for the most optimal cooler positioning on the CPU and inside the case, there is only one possibility, which is indicated in the manual:

There shouldn’t be any issues installing the cooler this way onto an Intel platform. However, things are just as good on the AMD platform, because the retention holes in the steel brackets holding the cooler at the base are symmetrical. They will allow you to turn the cooler as recommended on the picture above, no matter which way the processor socket on the mainboard is positioned.

The pictures taken with the cooler installed onto the mainboard will be a great illustration of its enormous size and massiveness:

And this is what Scythe Susanoo cooler looks like inside the system case:

As we see, on our Gigabyte GA-X58A-UD9 the smaller heatsink array of Scythe Susanoo cooler didn’t hang over the graphics card, because the first PCI Express slot is pretty far away from the processor socket. Nevertheless, when installed on other mainboards with more compact expansion slots layout, Susanoo’s fans will cool not only the components around the CPU socket, but also the graphics card. Although for maximum efficiency you will have to find a proper VGA heatsink, because it makes absolutely no sense to blow air onto closed plastic casings of the reference graphics accelerators. I would also like to add that with Scythe Susanoo inside we couldn’t close the side panel of our Antec Twelve Hundred system case, because the non-removable fan retention on the case side panel was pushing against one of Susanoo’s fans. Therefore, almost all the tests were performed inside the system case but with removed side panel. Why “almost all” you ask? Well, you are about to find out!